Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Clay
I may have made a mistake.
The bar is packed. We ran out of margarita mix and tequila over an hour ago. If one more customer complains that they missed out on their traditional Rita’s ’rita, I might turn the soda gun on them.
Louisa’s fingers glide over the small of my back as she steps behind me, reaching for a bottle of rum. My entire body tenses, goosebumps rising over my arms and the back of my neck—a stupid reaction that renders me naked and vulnerable. Which is ridiculous considering my career choices.
“Stop touching me,” I hiss as the sweet cloud of cherry perfume envelopes me. She’s so close I can feel the heat of her.
“I’m not doing it because I want to,” she snaps back, taking the rum with her.
I’ve made several mistakes, and canceling that margarita mix and tequila order—which I’d assumed was a Travis fuck-up—isn’t even my top regret.
Nope, my top regret is sending Briar out as a waitress instead of leaving her behind the bar with Louisa, who is constantly underfoot.
Not to mention, Louisa moved everything around in a workflow that’s counterintuitive to me, so it takes me twice as long to make a drink, something she frequently remarks on.
Briar sets a tray of dirty glasses at the end of the bar, collects the gin and tonics almost before I can garnish them with lime wedges, and disappears into the crowd.
A well-dressed man—definitely not a local—asks for a draft beer, so I reach for a glass. There aren’t any.
“You’re falling behind,” I say as I squeeze by Louisa to the glass washer, where glasses are piling up.
She flips the blender on before I’ve finished. “What?” She smiles. She heard me.
There’s a half-full rack of clean glasses that she’s been picking through. I grab a pint glass from it. The blender stops as I slide behind her. “Do you need me to show you how the washer works?” she asks all innocently.
I don’t look her way until I’ve finished pouring the beer. “I need you to stop half-assing your job.”
“I thought we were sharing, as equal partners,” she says evenly, rinsing out the now-empty blender in the sink.
I accept payment for the beer, then stomp back over to put away the rest of the clean glasses. There’s another rack finished in the washer, so I take those out, rack up more dirty glasses, and slide those in. Louisa can handle the bar on her own while I do it.
The bar never felt this small with Briar back here. With Louisa, it’s cramped and narrow, only enough space for one and a half bartenders. And it’s hot. Stuffy. I can’t escape the cloying scent of her syrupy sweet cherry perfume.
I turn abruptly, directly into a startled yelp. The drink hits me like a slap to the face, and I blow Long Island iced tea out of my mouth, flicking it from my eyes to a chorus of laughter and hoots.
Louisa’s eyes drop over the stain on my white shirt.
“Sorry,” she says with undisguised mirth.
She’s not unscathed—a few dark drops are in the process of getting sucked into her cleavage—but she’s wearing a low-cut black sleeveless blouse with pearl white buttons and a knee-length curve-hugging black skirt. Stains won’t be a problem for her.
I don’t tell her where I’m going, and since there are people everywhere, I re-lock the apartment door behind me, even though this will only take a minute.
When I walk back behind the bar, Louisa does a double-take.
The men’s t-shirt was among her belongings I boxed up after moving in. I assume she stole it from some unsuspecting man, likely along with his soul. Since we’re sharing, she can’t complain.
She doesn’t. Just blinks at me, those deep red lips parting slightly like she likes what she sees. When I raise my eyebrows at her and point toward the customer she’s neglecting, she flips me off and pours the woman a glass of wine.
Ten o’clock. Three hours to go.
Without any announcement, everyone in the bar is suddenly moving toward the front door.
I tense. “What’s going on?”
“Fireworks are about to start,” she says, flitting about, quick hands cleaning up the various messes.
“They can’t take drinks beyond—”
“It’s one night of the year, they’re only going out on the lawn to watch the fireworks over the lake, and they’ll be back inside in five minutes.
” She blows a loose lock of hair from her forehead.
“And the sheriff will be in Havenwood overseeing the fireworks with a few volunteer firefighter buddies.”
Small towns. Rules don’t apply where they’re inconvenient and no one is around to enforce them. Which, I have to remind myself, is why this dive bar appealed to me in the first place.
So far, Ms. Gallo has shown no interest in reviewing the books. In fact, she’s only asked one question—whether we’re making money or losing money. It’s suspicious.
My attention is on racking the dirty glassware Briar is collecting, so I don’t see Louisa walk behind me so much as I feel it. Scent her perfume over spilled booze.
She’s distracting. Irritating. The thorns on that tangled rose tattoo are tipped ever so slightly in red, and I want to count them.
I want my mouth on her goddamned neck. Before I slid my shirt off her shapely shoulders, it was merely an intrusive thought sporadically popping up, a reminder of how bored I am.
But since I felt that soft, smooth skin under my palms, against my fingertips, since I watched her nipples pucker through that red bikini top, that intrusive thought has taken on a life of its own.
Vexed by my inability to focus on anything else, I grab the rack of dirty glassware and head for the washer. Glasses rattle as I stuff the rack inside, shut the door, and initiate the wash cycle.
There’s no challenge here. That’s the problem. I’m idle. There’s so little challenge in running this dive bar that I’m creating one for myself in Louisa Gallo.
This stupid wash cycle is taking too long. I turn abruptly. She’s just another mouthy—
I crash into her.
For a moment, I think I can pull out of this fall. My shoes skid on the floor, and I nearly regain my balance. But her legs are like tentacles, tangling in mine. She squeaks and grabs my shirt, pulling me forward.
There’s nothing I can do but grab her and cradle the back of her head as we go down.
I hit the ground with a knee-cap destroying impact, my elbows and forearms a nanosecond later.
My hand takes the crack instead of her skull.
Maybe I black out from the pain for a heartbeat.
There’s no other excuse for how my body crumples on top of hers.
Louisa takes my full weight with a soft oomph.
The scent of that goddamn perfume brings me to my senses, but my joints, worn from years of dancing, protest when I try to get up. “Give me a second,” I grit out when my knees—bracketing her legs—refuse to hold my weight.
“Only a second?” she asks with a wince. “I thought you were a pro.”
I would go all fucking night—not one second—for this infuriating woman beneath me, but thinking about that while I have her pressed to the floor isn’t slowing the pain throbbing in my knees.
There’s no gym in Havenwood, and any desire I felt to jog on the trails at Happy Lake disappeared after a local mentioned sighting a cougar on a game camera.
I’ve always been catnip for cougars. I assume it will be true for their feline counterparts.
But maybe if I’d kept up some level of exercise, she wouldn’t have taken me down so easily, and we wouldn’t be here.
I wouldn’t be desperately trying to ignore how good it feels to press my body against hers or how seductively delicious her perfume is this close.
My cock is already growing hard. I need to move before she notices.
“Clay?”
I reluctantly look down at her. Big brown eyes lined with thick lashes stare up at me.
Her pert nose wrinkles, but it’s those fucking lips that I can’t look away from.
Pouty. That’s what they are. Stained red and gloriously kissable, with a little flat indentation I want to press the pad of my thumb in, right before I feed her my cock.
That disturbing image sends a jolt of adrenaline through me, and I finally manage to get myself up on my sore knees.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter as I push to my feet. “Watch where you’re going.”
Louisa is quicker than I am, getting back to her feet before I have to offer to help her up. “Remember when you told me not to touch you?” She brushes off her skirt and straightens her blouse. “I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to. I was letting you know when I was behind you.”
I shift my weight, then take a couple of steps. My knees ache, but nothing is out of place. “Fine. Please touch me. Anything to avoid ending up on top of you again. What are you looking at?” I demand when I notice Briar watching us from the other side of the bar.
Briar shrugs. “Fireworks. Guess I didn’t miss them.” She points to me, then Louisa. “Your scowls match.”
Louisa spins around and fucks off into the kitchen, which I hate to admit, is also my first impulse.
“I love this for you,” Briar says.
“I thought we were friends,” I complain, going back to the glass washer.
She raises an eyebrow. “You have those?”
Ouch. “Fine. I thought we were friendly.” I motion to the lumberjack with the man bun sitting alone at a table against the wall. “How long has he been here?”
She glances over her shoulder. “How should I know?”
The black shirt I’m wearing might be his. It’s slightly loose on me. It would be skin tight on him. He hasn’t come up to the bar, so Briar must have brought him the untouched beer sitting next to his sketch pad.
“What is he doing?”
“Sketching furniture.”
He came to a dive bar to sketch furniture? Doubtful.
“He makes it?” When she shrugs, I glance over at him again. So he has his own business—maybe he’d be interested in unknowingly helping me launder some cash. “What else does he do?”
She tucks a strand of fading purple hair behind her ear and glares. “Lumberjack shit. I don’t know,” she says before walking away.
The fireworks outside must be over. People trickle back in, talking and laughing.
Louisa wanders out from the kitchen, a red plastic basket in hand filled with something battered and fried.
She places it on the back counter and fills a glass with ice, adding an obscene number of maraschino cherries before topping it with grenadine and Coke.
Since no one is clamoring for a drink yet, I watch her.
She stares right back as her lush red lips close over the metal straw and her cheeks hollow as she sucks the drink down. She’s a picture straight from an old magazine or a dirty tattoo parlor as she leans against the counter, one curvy hip pushed out. Confident, intimidating, and sultry as hell.
I won’t be the first to look away. But walking up to stand next to her isn’t the plan. It also isn’t the plan to take her drink when she sets it down. The straw is cool against my lips as I take a sip.
The drink is sickly sweet, and I make a face as I return it to the counter. “How can you drink this?”
Her lips turn up in a devious smile, her dark eyes twinkling in the dim bar light. “The better question is, why are you?”
Why am I?
I shrug and walk away like it’s no big deal, but for the rest of the shift, it eats me up inside.
Her touches, when she feels the need to inform me of her presence—like I don’t already know exactly where she is at all times—get under my skin in a way that makes me want to rip off my clothes and stand under the coldest of showers.
But when she disappears twenty minutes before closing time, my stomach sours.
Because I’m spiteful, I spear the last maraschino cherry from her drink with the metal straw and pop it into my mouth, expecting fate to have her catch me in the act.
Nothing.
What the fuck is she up to?
“Watch the bar for a sec?” I ask Briar, who’s wiping down tables. I don’t wait for her nod to round the bar, headed toward the hallway that leads to the office, restrooms, and the apartment upstairs.
And there’s Louisa, a flirty smile on her face for the lumberjack as he leans over her. Her hands are on him, his on the wall behind her. They both ignore me as I let myself into the office.
It doesn’t matter. I don’t give a flying fuck, but she’s supposed to be working, not seducing her fuckbuddy in the hallway.
The desk is cool under my fingertips. Do I need to remind her this is a fuck-free zone? She’ll have to take him back to my camper.
That’s also a fuck-free zone as of right now.
I’m already opening the door, ready to inform her of the new zoning restrictions before I realize I can’t. It’s already obvious I came in here for nothing.
They’re still standing there, but this time I don’t glance their way. Maybe he’s finally getting that kiss she gave me the other night. The ghost of the kiss meant for him tingles across my lips, and I scrub my hand over my mouth to dislodge it.
I don’t care if she kisses him or anyone else. I don’t. Not even a little.
For fuck’s sake—what happened to his crush on Briar? Maybe he needs a reminder.
“Briar?” I try to keep the snap out of my voice as I head back behind the bar. “Can you clean the ladies’ room? Then you can go home.”
She gives me a mocking salute as she drops her cloth on the bar, heading to the hallway for the cleaning supplies.
I almost feel a pang of regret for the hurt I’ve put in her path, but sending her in works.
Milo storms out of the hallway and leaves without a word or a backward glance.
Louisa walks out like nothing happened, but there’s the slightest frown on her face. More flummoxed than upset.
Then her gaze fixes on me as she joins me behind the bar, and her eyes narrow in suspicion.
“You’re an ass,” she says, picking up her cherry Coke and taking a drink.
I don’t deny it.